Who were the Peninsular South Indian (BC 600 to 600 AD)?

Peninsular South Indian is one of the 50 curated source populations in the Classical Antiquity era of Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis: a group of published genomes pooled as a single reference the model can test your genome against. These are ancient individuals from one archaeological context wherever the record holds them, and present-day genomes standing in where it does not, which the description on this page says.

Does Peninsular South Indian in my result mean they were my ancestors?

No. A source population is a reference the model tests against, never a statement about who your ancestors were. A coefficient on this source means the ancestry those burials represent helps explain your genome to within statistical noise: similar ancestry composition, not descent from those individuals. Ancestrify never claims a population is your ancestor.

What does a Peninsular South Indian percentage in a qpAdm model mean?

qpAdm estimates the mixture proportions that best explain your genome as a combination of the chosen sources, given a fixed set of outgroup (right) populations, and reports a p-value for whether the model is statistically acceptable together with a standard error for every proportion. The percentage is that estimated share, with its uncertainty published beside it.

How do I get a qpAdm model that uses Peninsular South Indian?

Order Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis (€29.99, one-time), and upload the raw file you already have from a consumer test. Your genome is merged into the AADR reference panel and modelled across both eras; each era's model is built from that era's source populations, so a model for the Classical Antiquity era draws on Peninsular South Indian where it improves the fit.

Can I model Peninsular South Indian ancestry for free first?

Yes. The Ancestrify Lab runs Global25 admixture calculators, a nearest-populations distance tool and an AdmixTools 2 workbench in your browser with no account, and several calculators cover the Classical Antiquity era. Those are G25 fits, not formal qpAdm models. Ancient Ancestry, the paid analysis, is the one with a p-value.

Ancestry populations · Classical Antiquity

Peninsular South Indian

The deep-rooted ancestry of peninsular India in the early historic period, represented by the Irula of the Nilgiri Hills, the southern anchor of South Asian models. One of the 50 curated source populations in the Classical Antiquity era of Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis.

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Who they were

Artistic interpretation of the Peninsular South Indian (AI-generated artwork, not documentary evidence)

Period: BC 600 to 600 AD
Era in the analysis: Classical Antiquity
Region: Peninsular India
Role in the model: Source (left) population, a reference qpAdm tests against

Peninsular India in the early historic period, from the age of the Buddha to the Gupta and early Pallava centuries, was home to populations whose ancestry lay mostly on the deep indigenous side of the subcontinent's gradient, the Ancestral South Indian pole, with a smaller Iranian-farmer-related and steppe-related share than the north (Reich et al. 2009; Narasimhan et al. 2019). Ancient genomes from the peninsula in these centuries are still rare, so this source is built from present-day reference genomes of the Irula of the Nilgiri Hills, a long-isolated community whose ancestry preserves the ancient peninsular profile with minimal later admixture, in the same way present-day Bedouin genomes stand in for the ancient Arabian Peninsula.

This ancestry is highest today in the tribal and southern populations of India and grades northwards and westwards into the Iranian-farmer- and steppe-related ancestry of the north; nearly every South Indian genome, and a large share of every North Indian one, draws on it. In the model it is the southern anchor of the era, the source that separates the indigenous component of a South Asian genome from everything that arrived from the north-west.

In Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis, Peninsular South Indian is a source in the "Classical Antiquity" era. The report shows its weight with a standard error and a Z-score, so you can see not only how much of the model it carries but how confidently that share is separated from zero, and a model that cannot support it is rejected rather than published. For a South or Central Indian genome it is usually the largest source of the era, and its weight should be read against the Swat sources that describe the north-western pole and against the Parthian Iran source for any Iranian-related share.

Y haplogroups H, L1, F and R2, and mtDNA lineages of the M clade, are characteristic of populations rich in this ancestry. A haplogroup alone is never evidence of a share.

In your report
The deeply rooted population of peninsular India in the early historic period, represented by the Irula of the Nilgiri Hills — a long-isolated community whose genomes preserve the ancient peninsular ancestry with minimal later admixture, the same way present-day Bedouin genomes stand in for the ancient Arabian Peninsula. The essential southern anchor for every South and Central Indian model.

Artwork is an AI-generated artistic interpretation informed by the archaeological record, not documentary evidence.

Where this population sits in the model

Ancient Ancestry, our qpAdm analysis, models your genome once per era. The Classical Antiquity era has 50 curated source populations, and Peninsular South Indian is one of them: every candidate model for that era is a combination of these sources, tested against a fixed set of outgroup populations, and only a model that passes the statistical fit check is published, with a p-value and a standard error on every proportion.

A reference, not a verdict: every population on this page is a source the model tests your genome against, a well-sampled point in ancient genetic space that a mixture of ancestries can be expressed in terms of. A weight on it means your genome is well described as partly resembling those people; it is never a statement that they, specifically, were your ancestors, and a population that fits well is not the only one that could.

Read how qpAdm works on the Ancient Ancestry page, or the definitions in the glossary.

Model it yourself for free

The Ancestrify Lab runs in your browser, with no account. Paste a Global25 row into an admixture calculator that covers the Classical Antiquity era, rank the closest ancient populations in the distance tool, or run f4, qpWave and qpAdm on the public panel in the AdmixTools 2 workbench. These are Global25 fits and exploratory statistics, not the formal qpAdm model of Ancient Ancestry.

Questions

Who were the Peninsular South Indian (BC 600 to 600 AD)?
Peninsular South Indian is one of the 50 curated source populations in the Classical Antiquity era of Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis: a group of published genomes pooled as a single reference the model can test your genome against. These are ancient individuals from one archaeological context wherever the record holds them, and present-day genomes standing in where it does not, which the description on this page says.
Does Peninsular South Indian in my result mean they were my ancestors?
No. A source population is a reference the model tests against, never a statement about who your ancestors were. A coefficient on this source means the ancestry those burials represent helps explain your genome to within statistical noise: similar ancestry composition, not descent from those individuals. Ancestrify never claims a population is your ancestor.
What does a Peninsular South Indian percentage in a qpAdm model mean?
qpAdm estimates the mixture proportions that best explain your genome as a combination of the chosen sources, given a fixed set of outgroup (right) populations, and reports a p-value for whether the model is statistically acceptable together with a standard error for every proportion. The percentage is that estimated share, with its uncertainty published beside it.
How do I get a qpAdm model that uses Peninsular South Indian?
Order Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis (€29.99, one-time), and upload the raw file you already have from a consumer test. Your genome is merged into the AADR reference panel and modelled across both eras; each era's model is built from that era's source populations, so a model for the Classical Antiquity era draws on Peninsular South Indian where it improves the fit.
Can I model Peninsular South Indian ancestry for free first?
Yes. The Ancestrify Lab runs Global25 admixture calculators, a nearest-populations distance tool and an AdmixTools 2 workbench in your browser with no account, and several calculators cover the Classical Antiquity era. Those are G25 fits, not formal qpAdm models. Ancient Ancestry, the paid analysis, is the one with a p-value.

More populations from the Classical Antiquity era

Browse the full directory of source populations, or continue with another population from the same era: